


Better Watched Than Gold

by accidentallymelted



Series: You Can't Take The Sky From Me [4]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Columbus Blue Jackets, Gen, Other Player Cameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-15 23:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidentallymelted/pseuds/accidentallymelted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do we really need the money that badly?”</p><p>Jack looked at Dubi across the top of his glass and raised his eyebrows. “We always need the money,” he said, putting down his glass and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Our financial situation is maybe slightly less dire at the moment than usual, but we could still use the money.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Do we really need the money that badly?”

Jack looked at Dubi across the top of his glass and raised his eyebrows. “We always need the money,” he said, putting down his glass and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Our financial situation is maybe slightly less dire at the moment than usual, but we could still use the money.”

“But we don’t need the money?” Dubi persisted. Jack gazed at him thoughtfully.

“We do need the money,” he said, “but maybe we don’t need the money from this particular job. What’s up?”

Dubi shifted his weight slightly, glancing around the badly lit interior of the bar. It was difficult to tell behind his usual professionally stoic expression, but Jack thought he looked uneasy.

“Nothing specific,” he said, finally. “Nothing I can put my finger on. I just have a bad feeling.”

“About the job or about the bar?” Jack asked. Dubi gave him a look that Jack took to mean, _Could be either. Could be both. Could be nothing_ , which made Jack frown into his drink. Dubi’s instincts were good, and Jack was inclined to trust him, even though he hadn’t gotten any bad vibes off of this job.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Their contact was new - recommended by an old acquaintance of Artem’s that he’d kept up sporadic contact with since joining the crew of the _Blue Jacket_. He’d told Artem that he knew a guy who was looking to hire a crew and were to meet him. Artem had vouched for the guy, and Jack hadn’t been able to dig up any information that would prevent the crew from meeting with him. Nevertheless, Jack liked to handle first meetings with unknown contacts with extreme caution, and insisted that no one was allowed to go anywhere without a radio. He hadn’t forgotten what had happened to Wiz on Persephone, even if everyone else had. They all made faces at him when he reminded them about having radios at all times, and staying in groups when possible.

Artem had wanted to come along to the meeting, but Dubi had shut him down completely. Artem had tried to get Jack to override Dubi, but Jack deferred to Dubi’s judgement when it came to the safety of the crew.

“What about us?” Cammie had asked, pulling out the puppy dog eyes. Matt nodded from his seat next to her, sticking out his lower lip like a child. Jack hid a grin but shook his head firmly and said, “No, and that’s final,” and went back to making a list of the supplies that they absolutely needed to pick up before they left.

“You could come with me,” Macy had offered, grinning wickedly. “I’m going shopping.” Jack had swallowed a grin as the three junior crewmembers all blanched at that. The last time Macy had gone shopping, Cammie had gone with her and had come back staggering and exhausted under the weight of their purchases, complaining that “She made me try on everything! Twice! And she wouldn’t even let me touch the crossbow!” The time before that, Macy had gotten over enthusiastic while picking pockets and got herself and Artem arrested. Jack had given them both a lecture about being more careful when he’d gone to bail them out that Macy had laughed off but had caused Artem to slink around the ship like a kicked puppy for the next several days. Matt had come back with a greenish cast to his face and refused to talk about it.

“I want you to take Bob,” Jack said firmly. “One of you three can go as well, if you want, but I want Bob to go with you this time, Macy.” He took a look at her gleeful expression and added, “Don’t break him, lose him, or get him arrested.” At that Bob leaned forward, looking concerned, but Jack gave him a reassuring look and he sat back. Macy made a face at him but nodded, knowing better than to argue when Jack used his captain’s voice.

“You three - one of you can go with Macy, if you like. Whoever stays behind is going to be responsible for cleaning out the cargo hold, and I want someone to have the combox on them at all times.”

“What about Wiz?” Matt asked. Jack rolled his eyes.

“Wiz is going to be out refueling this baby,” the man himself piped up from his seat in the corner. “But if I make it back before Jack and Dubi are done, and the cargo hold is clean, I might have time for a quick piloting lesson.”

Cammie, Matt and Artem all lit up and Macy rolled her eyes. “So no one else wants to come with me and Bob?” she asked, giving them a mock-disappointed look. They all shook their heads, and she sighed. “Well, I suppose we’ll muddle along somehow.”

Bob looked a little concerned, but he followed Macy off the ship with a good-natured smile when they finally landed. “Stay out of trouble!” Wiz yelled after them. Macy gestured rudely at him without turning around, grabbed Bob by the arm and hauled him off into the market. Jack noticed the ghost of a frown on Dubi’s face and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Relax. She’ll take good care of him,” he said. Dubi’s face twitched a little before settling back into the professional mask he used when meeting contacts.

“I’m sure she will,” he said. “Do you have the directions to this bar?”

“Sure do,” Jack said, checking his pockets and his weapons one last time before leaving the ship to make sure he had everything. “Tiny’s. Should be about a fifteen minute walk thataway.”

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“If our guy hasn’t shown in the next ten minutes, we can go,” Jack said to Dubi. “Something about this place feels. . . “ he trailed off, not knowing exactly how to put it. “Twitchy,” he finally decided, glancing around the room again. 

One corner of Dubi’s mouth turned down in his closest approximation of a frown. “I don’t like it, but you’re the boss,” he said, turning so that he could see the whole room and oh-so-casually angling his body so that he was between Jack and the nearest other person. Jack made a face but didn’t say anything about it - the last time he’d tried to take Dubi to task over his ridiculous overprotective routine, Dubi had listened with a bland expression on his face and then proceeded to ignore him completely. Jack liked to think he knew a losing battle when he saw one, so he had given up and allowed Dubi to act like his bodyguard when they met new contractors.

A stranger broke off from the loud group who had just entered the bar and headed over towards where Jack and Dubi were waiting. Dubi immediately straightened up and put himself directly in between Jack and the stranger, while Jack slouched lower on his stool, trying to project an air of nonchalance as the stranger looked Dubi over with a raised brow.

“You the _Blue Jacket_ boys?” he said, and it sounded vaguely insulting, as though he’d been expecting something different and found them wanting.

“I’m Captain Johnson of the _Blue Jacket_ ,” Jack said mildly, resting his elbows back on the bar. He still wasn’t entirely comfortable with the title but he was getting used to it. “You Avery?”

The stranger grinned, a quick flash of teeth with no real humor. “I am. Welcome to _Tiny’s_.”

“I hear you have a job for us,” Jack said, preferring to get straight to the point. Dubi appeared to be splitting his time between eyeing Avery threateningly and keeping an eye on the room. “Let’s hear it then, and we’ll decide if we’re interested.”

“Forthright,” Avery said, a little mockingly. “I admire that in a man. We don’t talk business in the front room, however. Follow me.”

He led them around the counter and into a back room that was much more spacious and well-lit than the dark, crowded main room. Avery waved at the table, indicating that they should take a seat. Jack sat down, but Dubi moved back to stand in the doorway. Avery flashed that humorless grin again as he crossed to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle.

“So,” said Avery as he sat down and poured himself a drink. “You’re interested in my job.”

“Maybe,” Jack said, waving Avery off when he offered Jack a drink of his own. “You haven’t told us anything about it yet.”

“True,” Avery said as he took a sip of his drink. “Very true. Alright, then - I had a shipment of finest Terran whiskey that was due to come in a week ago. Trouble is, my tax documentation was not filed properly with the Alliance, and they took exception to my shipment.” His wry delivery seemed to indicate that this was not a new problem. “They have confiscated it and are holding it in an Alliance facility on Ariel pending proper tax documentation.”

“And you want us to. . . submit your tax documentation,” Jack said slowly.

“In a manner of speaking,” Avery agreed. “Pick up the shipment at Ariel and deliver it to me. Payment will be five thousand credits, half now and half on successful delivery.”

Jack sat back in his chair. He could give Bob free rein to upgrade whatever he wanted with that, and still have enough left over to restock their supplies for the next 3 months. He could give his crew some spending money and shore leave, and they would be able to be a little pickier about which jobs they took for the next couple months. On the other hand, breaking into Alliance holdings was never easy, and Terran whiskey - if Avery was willing to pay five thousand credits just for them to retrieve it, it might even be in a secure holding facility. He glanced over at Dubi, who gave him a miniscule shrug. Could go either way, then. He looked back at Avery.

“Five thousand, half now and half on delivery,” he said slowly. “And you pick up any business related expenditures if we take this job.”

“Done,” Avery said, holding out his hand. Jack took it, feeling a little shell-shocked. That had gone over much more easily than he’d expected, and he had the sinking feeling that he’d been had. “Here’s a data chip with as much information as I have about the shipment and where it’s being held. When can I expect delivery?”

Dubi cleared his throat and Jack glanced over at him quickly. “I’ll confer with my crew and get back to you by this evening,” he temporized. Dubi was looking impatient, which mean that something was happening outside and he wanted to get out, so Jack pushed his chair back and stood up. “Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Avery.”

“The pleasure was all mine,” Avery said, smiling like the cat who’d got the canary and making no move to get up. “I look forward to hearing from you, Captain Johnson.”

Jack nodded at him and ducked back out into the main room of the bar. A crowd had gathered between them and the exit, and Dubi muttered something that Jack couldn’t hear as they started pushing their way through. They hadn’t even gotten halfway to the door before a voice rang out over the murmurs of the crowd and ubiquitous bar music. “Maybe you should just run back to where you came from,” it said. “That’s all the Rebels ever did, isn’t it?”

Jack felt Dubi stiffen next to him at the insult. Dubi and Jack had both been too young to fight in the Unification Wars, but both of them were from small border moons that had supported the Independents. Dubi shook it off after a moment and made as if to keep moving, but Jack stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and began to push through to the center of the crowd.

“Why don’t you just go back to your drinking, and I’ll go back to mine,” came the response, in a much lower, calmer tone as Jack finally managed to force his way through to the forefront of the crowd.

A tired-looking man in a slightly shabby brown coat was sitting at the table, looking at his drink and appearing to ignore the crowd surrounding him. Just off to his right, and looking the worse for several rounds of drinks, was a small cluster of men. One of them was smirking at his victim.

“I don’t think so, _Reb_ ,” he said, grinning nastily. “We don’t much like Browncoats in here, do we boys?” His posse rumbled agreement, and the crowd surrounding the table buzzed a little in anticipation. “Why don’t you go ahead and leave?”

“I have just as much right to enjoy my drink here as you do, gentlemen,” the tired-looking man said as he drained his glass. “In fact, I find myself in need of another. So if you’ll excuse me-”

He got up from his stool and began to move towards the counter, but someone grabbed his arm. Jack saw the man sigh before he began to turn - and duck the punch the ringleader threw at his head as he was turning, using the man’s momentum to send him stumbling into the crowd.

The man’s friends took exception to that, and jumped the man in the brown coat. He was a good fighter, Jack noticed, getting his attackers to interfere with each other more than they came at him, but he was still outnumbered, and it was clearly an unfair fight. Jack considered unfair fights to be one of life’s greatest sins, so he stepped in to lend a hand, ignoring Dubi’s dark mutter of “Macy’s never going to let me hear the end of this.”

The problem with fighting in a crowded space like _Tiny’s_ , Jack found, was that there wasn’t really that much room to maneuver. He ducked a flailing hit from one of their assailants, and came up underneath with an uppercut that snapped the man’s head back - right into where the man in the brown coat was winding up to deliver a blow to his own assailant, knocking him forward into the man instead. Jack could see Dubi off to his left, fending off a flurry of blows from the original antagonist, who’d managed to get it together enough to join the fight. Jack worked his way around a member of the crowd and pried the man in the brown coat out from where he’d been tangled with a pair of brawlers who were bright enough to try attacking him from both sides.

“What do you say we move this outside?” Jack shouted into his ear as he hauled him in the general direction of the door. The man in the brown coat looked at him oddly but nodded. Jack dragged him through the crowd back over to Dubi, who was fending off another pair of attackers who clearly weren’t used to fighting as a team. Some of the crowd had jumped in to join the brawl, although they didn’t seem clear as to whose side they were on. Or they just liked fighting people, Jack thought as he saw one huge man wade into a knot of scufflers and start punching indiscriminately.The rest of the crowd had gone back to their drinks, although they were perfectly willing to heckle from the sidelines.

As he shoved his way through the chaos, Jack noticed that both he and the man with the brown coat were being targeted by the men who’d started the whole fight. It became particularly obvious when one of them actually swung away from the man he was scuffling with to try and engage him. The man he’d been scuffling with took the opportunity to deck him from behind, and Jack stepped over him as he went down and then ducked a wild punch from another brawler. He tried to look over and see if Dubi was having the same issues, but another man came crashing into him, swinging one of the bar’s pool table cues, and he got distracted dealing with that.

“Outside!” Jack yelled at Dubi, when he finally got back to him. Dubi glared at him, and Jack could already hear the lecture that Dubi was going to give him about jumping into random bar fights and going off on his own in random bar fights, especially when he was the one who insisted that everyone needed to be careful and have backup all the time. At the moment, though, he nodded and began shoving people out of the way as Jack and the man with the brown coat fell in behind him.

Once they’d managed to get themselves outside, Jack and Dubi stood side by side in front of the man in the brown coat and drew their guns. The group of men who had been targeting them spilled out of the bar a half-second later and looked as though they were thinking of continuing the fight regardless, but then the fact that they were unarmed (except for a chair that one of them had picked up somewhere, Jack wasn’t really clear on when that had happened) seemed to sink through their alcohol and adrenaline-fueled haze and they slunk off, except for the ringleader, who sneered at them first.

“Can’t even fight your own battles, _Reb_ ,” he snarled. Dubi sighed and cocked his gun, pointing it directly at the man.

“Get,” he said, motioning with the tip of his gun. The man sneered for a second longer, just enough time for Dubi to narrow his eyes and tighten his grip on the gun, before turning and following his friends off into the city.

“My thanks,” said the man in the brown coat. “But they’ll be back, you know, with more people and weapons this time.”

“Our pleasure,” Jack said automatically. “Wait, what do you mean they’ll be back?”

He looked resigned. “Gleesom and his cronies are bullies. You made them look bad - they will want revenge.”

Dubi cleared his throat meaningfully at Jack, who turned and scowled at him. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything, Captain,” Dubi said blandly.

“You were thinking it very loudly,” Jack muttered. “Let’s head back to the ship, then, and call everyone back so we can head off before it becomes a problem. Do you want a ride?” This last was directed at the man in the brown coat, who was looking at them with an amused expression.

“Pardon me?” His expression switched from amused to quizzical.

“I figure it’s probably our fault that your buddies got their noses so out of joint,” Jack said, feeling Dubi’s disapproving glare on the side of his head. “The least we can do is offer you a ride to somewhere else - unless of course you’d rather stay here?”

The man got a faraway look on his face, then shook his head. “No, there’s nothing keeping me here. I accept.” He held out his hand to shake. “Marian Gaborik.”

Jack holstered his gun and took his hand. “Jack Johnson, captain of the _Blue Jacket_. That’s Brandon Dubinsky, he’s my second in command."

“A pleasure,” Dubi said sarcastically. “Can we get out of here and back to the ship please?”


	2. Chapter 2

“Cammie! Matt! Artie!” Jack called as he jogged up the gangway. There was a muffled thump from the inner cargo hold and Cammie stuck her head around the doorway.

“That was fast - oh my God what happened to your _face_ ,” she said, horrified. Jack reached up to touch it self-consciously, wincing as he touched a cut on his lip and it stung.

“Got into a disagreement with the locals,” Jack said cheerfully as Matt and Artem appeared in the doorway as well. Matt’s face fell.

“Does that mean that we didn’t get the job?” he asked. Matt had been helping Jack sort through the _Blue Jacket_ ’s finances recently, and he knew how badly they needed the job.

“We got the job,” Jack said, still grinning a little giddily as the adrenaline from the fight finally started to ebb. “The disagreement came afterwards. Is anyone else back yet?”

“Nope, you’re the first - wait a minute,” Cammie said, squinting at him. “Where’s Dubi?”

“Stopped off to get some things,” Jack said breezily, coming over to peer around them and check out their work on the inner cargo hold. “How much longer do you think this’ll take you?”

Artem shrugged at him. “Twenty minutes, maybe? Could be less, if you need us.” Cammie and Matt nodded.

“Nope, you’re good, go ahead and finish up in here,” Jack said, clapping Artem on the back. “Which of you has the combox?”

Matt grabbed it from where it was lying at his feet. Jack nodded approvingly at him and turned to head up to the cockpit.

“We’re having a full crew meeting in the kitchen when everyone gets back,” he called out as he left. “So like, half an hour? Finish cleaning up in here and then come on up.”

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“You are a dead man,” Dubi informed Jack. He was speaking in a low voice, Jack assumed to avoid being overheard by the rest of the crew, who were waiting in the kitchen for the two of them. Dubi had been lurking in the hallway and had waylaid Jack on his way in.

“Can it wait until after the meeting?” Jack asked, eyeing the doorway into the kitchen longingly. Dubi crossed his arms over his chest, unmoved.

“No, it can’t. What happened to our safety-conscious captain, hmm? Did he get hit one too many times in the face?”

“Is there a point to this,” Jack said flatly. “Because if there isn’t, it can definitely wait until afterwards-”

Dubi looked for a second as though he were about to explode. “You went off on your own!” he hissed. “After jumping into a bar fight that didn’t concern either you or me. You pissed off the town bully, who is apparently going to put together an even bigger gang and come after you. And then you went waltzing off on your own, didn’t even take a radio with you even though according to your own damn rules that’s cause for being the designated ship-sitter for the next five landings-”

“- I didn’t hear you saying anything at the time-”

“- well I couldn’t, could I, in front of the _complete stranger you jumped into a bar fight for_ \- “

“- since when has that ever stopped you -”

“- who you _invited back to the ship_ , oh yeah, showing anything but a unified front is a _great_ idea when we’ve got an unknown with us for who knows how long -”

“Excuse me,” said a voice, and Jack blinked and realized that he and Dubi had gotten right up in each other’s faces and were blocking the hallway, which was probably part of why Gaborik was staring at them bemusedly.

“I wanted to know, where would you like me to stow my things?” he asked politely, ignoring the palpable awkwardness in the hallway.

“There’s a spare cabin,” Jack said gruffly. “Dubi can show you.”

“One of the kids can do it,” Dubi said, jerking his head at the kitchen door. Jack bit back a sigh of irritation and glared at him.

“I need everyone present for this meeting,” Jack said, crossing his arms and attempting to communicate, _What happened to presenting a unified front?_ , to Dubi without words.

“Then you’d have to wait for me to get back anyway,” Dubi said tonelessly, rolling his eyes in a way that said clearly, _Too late for that_.

“Fine,” Jack snapped. “Follow me,” he said to Gaborik before stalking into the kitchen. “Everyone,” he addressed his assembled crew, who looked varying shades of startled at the appearance of a stranger, “this is Marian Gaborik. He had a disagreement with the locals; we’re giving him a lift to somewhere new. Artie, take him down and show him where the spare cabin is, please?” Jack saw Macy’s eyes narrow when he introduced Gaborik, but she didn’t say anything. Artem got up from the table, eyes wide at Jack’s unusually hostile tone. As he came around the table, Jack grabbed his arm and said, in an undertone, “Bring him back with you. I don’t want him wandering the ship by himself.” Artem nodded minutely in understanding.

“Follow me,” he said, gesturing at Gaborik, and led him out into the hallway. There was a brief moment of silence and then everyone tried to talk at once.

“So who is that?” Wiz demanded. “Why is he here? What are we doing?”

“You got into a disagreement with the locals over _him_?” Cammie asked. “What was it about?”

“Why are we giving him a lift?” Matt wanted to know.

Bob was frowning in confusion. “What just happen?” he asked, looking around the table.

Macy was shaking her head, an incredulous look on her face. “I can’t believe,” she said running a hand through her hair and laughing, “that you went out to get us a job and came back with a disgraced former war hero. Only you, Jack.”

This sparked a further furor of questions, with Cammie and Matt and Wiz all wanting to know what she’d meant, and did this mean that Macy knew Gaborik? Bob was still sitting there looking confused, but now he was looking at Jack, like he expected Jack to be able to clear the whole thing up. Jack sighed and let out a sharp whistle to get everyone’s attention.

“Now,” he said, when everyone had shut up and turned to face him, “first things first. We have a job, one that pays five thousand credits, half now and half on delivery. I have a data chip with all of the information we currently know about the job and I’ll go over it when Artem gets back. In other business, Dubi and I picked up Mr. Gaborik when a group of locals picked a fight with him. It turns out that in the process, we managed to embarrass the town bully, who doesn’t take kindly to that kind of thing, and I offered him a ride to somewhere else where he wouldn’t have to deal with it since it was kind of my fault he’d been put in that position in the first place. Now, Macy, what were you saying about him?”

Macy was glaring at him. “You picked him up in a bar fight?” She rounded on Dubi. “You’re supposed to know better than to let him get into bar fights!”

Dubi crossed his arms again. “You know as well as I do he’ll get into those fights anyway, especially when it’s a group against one. I figured the best thing to do was go in after him, keep him from getting too beat up. It could have been worse,” he said, gesturing at Jack’s cut lip. “Besides, don’t yell at him about the fight. Yell at him about what he did after the fight.”

Macy turned back to face Jack. “What did you do after the fight? I heard from Matt and Cammie that you were the first one back.”

Jack made a face at her. “I came back to the ship.”

“By himself,” Dubi added helpfully. “Gaborik and I headed back to his rooms to grab his things, and Jack here decided he’d better head back to the ship, so he took off. Left me with the radio, too.”

“Oh my God, Jack, what did you _just say_ about not going anywhere without at least a radio to call for backup,” Macy said disgustedly, putting her hands on her hips. “Of all the stupid things you could have done, you wandered around without any backup or any way for call for backup after apparently pissing off the locals enough that you’re offering Gaborik a ride off-planet?”

“Yes, yes, I know, it was stupid,” Jack admitted. “There wasn’t much of a choice, though, because we did piss off the local bully and Gaborik said he’d probably gather up a posse and be back. We did some dodging as we came back but someone’ll say something eventually and I’d rather we were on our way by that point. So I came back, so I could call you lot back, and also so that I could take a look at the data chip for the job. We have to give Avery an approximate estimate for when we’ll have delivery before we leave, so that we can get our half up front, and if we need to be leaving soon. . . “ he let his voice trail off and spread his hands. “Now, you were talking like you knew Gaborik. What about him do you know?”

“We’ll discuss this more later,” Macy warned, and Dubi followed it with a dark look that promised he wasn’t done yet either. “I don’t know a whole lot, and I’ve never met the man before. But a guy I worked with on my last ship knew him, told me a little bit about him. He was a war hero, fought for the Independents, helped them win a couple of important battles. But he was also present during the surrender at Serenity Valley.”

Jack hissed out a breath at that. The surrender at Serenity Valley had been a nasty, messy thing, prolonged unnecessarily. The whole ‘verse had watched in horror as the Independents’ commanders had argued amongst themselves about the terms of surrender while their soldiers died of exposure and starvation. He could understand how it would disgrace a previously honored war hero, to be associated with that.

The room was quiet for a moment, contemplating this information about their passenger. Wiz broke the quiet, saying, “So, you picked up a disgraced former war hero and a job! Good work, Jack, way to cash in on that two for one special.” Cammie and Matt both groaned at his terrible joke and even Macy cracked a reluctant smile at the sight of the two of them leaning over the table to smack at Wiz.

“But you never heard anything bad about him personally,” Jack asked Macy in an undertone. It was one thing to offer a ride to a stranger he’d accidentally put into difficulties. It was another to offer a ride to a stranger one of his crew had heard bad things about, and Jack would cheerfully go back on his word to protect his crew.

“No, I’ve heard that he was a good man, a good leader,” Macy said just as quietly. “The guy I talked with seemed to think that he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Next time, though, think about this _before_ you offer a guy a free pass, okay?” She glanced over at the doorway, where Artem was leading Gaborik back into the kitchen. “I’m not sure about having him in here for this.”

“Yes’m,” Jack said cheekily before giving her a genuine smile of thanks. “I didn’t want him wandering around the ship by himself,” he said in an undertone. Dubi, who was also close enough to listen, frowned at him but didn’t say anything. “I need everyone in here for planning, I can’t spare anyone to act as a babysitter.” Dubi snorted a little at that, still clearly irritated about earlier, but Jack ignored him. “We’ll keep an eye on him, though, just in case - he’s not allowed near any of computer consoles, we don’t need him sending a wave to anyone. And we’ll figure something out for when we get to Ariel.” Macy and Wiz shared a long look before nodding at Jack, who turned to the room at large and raised his voice.

“Alright, settle down! I need you all to pay attention, I have a lot of information to give all of you and not all that much time in which to give it. Now that Artie and Mr. Gaborik are back, we need to go over the job and hash out a framework for how long we think it’ll take us. When we’re done, Macy and Wiz will go and deliver our estimate and collect our payment.” He paused to glance around the table.

“Our client has had a shipment of Terran whiskey get confiscated by the Alliance because the smuggler he was using got caught by a routine border patrol. They’re holding the whiskey in the facility on Ariel.”

“Here’s where it gets a little tricky, though - the whiskey was traveling using two different layers of forged tax documentation. The first layer said it was cheap rotgut, and the second layer said it was moderately expensive Osiris bourbon. The Alliance not only spotted the first layer for a forgery, but they also spotted the second. That made them suspicious, so they checked the contents of the container and discovered what it really was. So not only is it in an Alliance facility, it’s in the secure wing of the Alliance facility.”

Jack pulled out the maps he’d printed off the data chip and spread them on the table, pointing at the three locations Avery had marked and explaining what else had been included in the information he’d been given. The crew bent over the maps, muttering to themselves as they scrutinized them.

After a few minutes, Wiz leant back in his chair with a sigh. “You weren’t kidding when you said this one wasn’t going to be easy,” he remarked dryly. “Anyway, timeline - it’ll take us at least three days to get to Ariel, and that’s provided we don’t need to stop off somewhere along the way to get supplies. Then it’ll take us another three days to get back after we’ve done the job.”

“I think we’re going to need to stop off at Osiris,” Dubi said, “and pick up some supplies. They’ve changed the Alliance uniform designs since the last time we did an Alliance job, and we’ll need to talk to Donovan about how to hack their security.”

“Are we thinking in and out, smash and grab, or do we want to try a longer infiltration?” Cammie asked from where she was still studying the maps of the facility. “I personally like smash and grab for this one. Maybe we can grab some other stuff too, I bet the Alliance has some nice goodies in their secure facility.”

Macy’s face split into an evil grin. “I hear they keep the good weaponry they confiscate in there,” she said.

Jack rapped on the table to get their attention before the conversation could devolve into a discussion of what the Alliance was likely to keep in their secure facility besides rare Terran whiskey. “I agree smash and grab would be best, I don’t think we’ve really got time to do a longer infiltration,” he said. “Matt, start putting out feelers, please. What was on the data chip is a good start but I want to know who on the staff can be bought, and for how much.”

Matt nodded, pulling a sheet of paper towards him and scribbling down a note. “Got it. Anything else?”

“Anything else you can get on their security system,” Dubi said, looking over the notes in the corner of the map. “The name of the designer would be best but any programming specs you can dig up are good too.”

“Forgery checker,” Bob said, speaking up for the first time since the initial hubbub. “You say both tax sheets caught?” he said, looking at Jack when the crew stared at him in confusion. “Terran whiskey so rare, expensive, five thousand credits cheap to get back. Not use bad forger. So forgery checker must be best. Need better.”

There was a brief silence while the crew worked through that statement, then Artem nodded. “I’ll look into it.”

“Anything else?” Jack asked. No one said anything, so he continued. “So it’ll take us about a week to get there, after we stop at Osiris. How long do we think it’ll take us to get the job done?”

“We want to get it done as fast as possible,” Wiz said after a brief, calculating silence. “So, say two weeks to be done with the whole thing? That’ll give us some wiggle room.”

“Any objections?” Jack asked the room. Matt and Artie were frowning at the maps, pointing things out to each other and muttering under their breath, but they looked up when Jack cleared his throat and shook their heads.

“Bob? Dubi? Macy?” All of them shook their heads. “Cammie?” She waved a lazy hand at him in denial, staring into space as she plotted. Jack shook his head and turned to Gaborik, who was sitting quietly in the corner of the kitchen.

“So, Mr. Gaborik, where can we let you off? There are a couple spots on the way to Osiris and Ariel that aren’t too picky about people’s backgrounds, or we’ll be headed out to the border moons after this run.”

Gaborik looked up at that. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to stay on until you’re headed out to the border moons,” he said. “I’d rather not deal with the Alliance if I can help it.”

Jack glanced around, but nobody looked like they objected. Dubi and Macy both gave him significant looks promising another meeting after they were finished with this to nail down what exactly they were going to do about Gaborik. Jack didn’t do or say anything in response - the two of them would find a quiet spot to corner him without his input - and turned back to Gaborik. “Not a problem, if you don’t mind taking a spot on the chores rota.” Gaborik shook his head. “Welcome aboard, then, Mr. Gaborik. Dubi’ll take you back to your cabin and explain the way the chore rota works. If you wouldn’t mind staying there until we’re off-planet?” Gaborik shook his head again and got up to follow Dubi out of the kitchen as the meeting broke up. “Macy, Wiz,” Jack said. “I need to give you directions to the bar. Wiz, take a gun just in case.”

“Aye aye, Captain!” Wiz called as he hauled himself to his feet and headed for his cabin to grab his gear. “Macy, you get the directions, I’ll follow you. You know how bad my memory is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The usual thanks to opusculasedfera for looking over this chapter and making it approximately 1000000x better. Anyone who enjoys this owes her their thanks for telling me how to fix it.


	3. Chapter 3

“Okay,” Jack said, wearily. “Let’s walk through the plan one last time. Wiz, you start.”

Wiz lifted his head from where he’d collapsed forward onto the table to squint at Jack. “I drop you, Matt, Cammie off in one shuttle and Dubi off in the other one, then I drop Artie and Macy off by the front entrance. Then I fly around to the other side of the planet and sit on my ass while I wait for all of you to rendezvous with me. My part is not exactly rocket science, Jack, I could probably do it in my sleep - speaking of sleep, can I go get some?”

“As soon as we’re done here. Macy?”

Macy looked up from where she was examining her nails. “Artem and I go in and I make as much noise as I can, claiming that something of mine was stolen. Artem looms menacingly and carries a big gun - why does he get the big gun?”

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. “I want you as disguised as possible. That means full formal wear, veil, strong Sihnon accent, the works. A gun would just be a hindrance under that much clothing.”

Macy pouted. “You owe me for this,” she muttered. “Anyway, we present them with our documents and make a lot of noise, draw a lot of attention to ourselves. We get caught - I don’t really like this part of the plan that much, Jack.”

Jack sighed heavily. “I don’t really like that part of the plan much either, Macy, but it is what we’ve got. Go on.”

“We get caught - do we try to make a run for it and get chased, or do we go quietly?”

Jack looked over at Dubi, who shrugged at him. “I think,” he said, “that that’ll have to depend on how we read the situation at the time. Don’t do it if you think they’ll shoot first ask questions later, though.”

“Fair enough,” Macy said, stretching. “So we get caught, and then we end up in an Alliance holding cell - you’re sure they’ll use the one in the facility?”

“Sources say yes,” Artem said, leaning forward. “From what I gathered, they hold forgers in the cell in the facility unless they get word that they’re wanted higher up on the food chain.”

“And you trust these sources?” Macy demanded. Artem looked back at her steadily.

“Yes,” he said, before pointing out, with flawless logic, “look, I’m going to be in the same boat you are, going in with you. If I did not trust them, why would I go in?”

Macy gave him a grudging nod at that. “We end up in an Alliance holding cell, and there we wait, while making as much of a nuisance of ourselves as possible to keep their attention on us, until someone comes and gets us.” She made a face. “Next time, Jack, I want a better part in the plan.”

“So noted. Matt?”

Matt looked up from his notes and blinked at him owlishly before snapping to attention. “Oh, I’m next. Okay. So, I get dropped off on the north side of the facility and go in disguised as a computer tech. I’ll attach this,” he held up a small device that looked a little bit like a metallic spider, “to an empty terminal somewhere and that should allow me to wirelessly access their network. I’ll use the override code that Jack got me - how did you get that, anyway?”

Jack smiled mysteriously. “I never reveal my sources,” he said. His entire crew turned unimpressed faces on him, and he scowled. “Fine! I got it from the designer.”

“The designer?” Dubi said, suspicious and angry. “You know the guy who designed the Alliance security system?”

“Yep,” Jack said, popping the “p” aggressively. “Don’t look at me like that, Dubi, he’s not Alliance. He designed the security system for someone else, and the Alliance liked the look of it so much that they stole it. But the override key still works,” he assured Matt, who looked uncertain. “He checked.”

“How did he-”

“Unimportant. Seriously, I trust this guy completely. If he says he checked and it works, he checked and it works. Keep going, Matt.”

“Anyway, the override code should allow me to make as many changes as I want in their system, so I can reroute communications, loop cameras, turn off alarms,” he shrugged. “Whatever we need.”

“After he’s set the bug, Matt will come back to the shuttle, where I will be waiting,” Jack said, picking up on the thread of the plan. “I’ll be on comms - everyone gets a radio so I can coordinate with all of you. Cammie?”

“Right,” Cammie said, leaning forward and smoothing out the map of the facility that was on the table. “Once Matt has the security system online, we’re going to search through their cameras and find the whiskey. After we find it, I’ll go in dressed as one of the facility workers and load up a cart, then bring that out to the loading bay, where Jack and Matt will have the shuttle waiting. We load up the whiskey and get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Right,” Jack said, pointing at her. “Okay, Dubi?”

“I wait until Cammie has the cart loaded up, and then go in as a higher-ranking Alliance official to take charge of their most recent prisoners. I pick up Artem and Macy, we load them onto the shuttle and take off to rendezvous with everyone on the other side of the planet.”

“Correct!” Jack braced his hands on the table and looked around the room. “Does anyone have any questions, comments or concerns? Speak now or forever hold your peace, people.”

“What I do?” Bob asked, from where he had been sitting quietly the whole time. Jack frowned at him.

“Make sure the ship is ready for a quick getaway,” he said, finally. “If you have any sort of maintenance you need to get done on the engine, now would be the time to get it done. We want to be in and out of this facility as fast as possible. Any more questions?” he asked, briskly. The crew all shook their heads. “Good. Now, go and get some sleep - we’ll be arriving at Ariel in about 10 hours at 1000 local time, and I want to get this done as quickly as possible once we’re there.” The crew grumbled a little bit, and Jack overheard Macy saying something about “rush jobs” to Cammie as they got up to leave, but they all headed off to their cabins obediently. Jack stopped Bob with a hand on his arm as he tried to leave.

“I also want you to keep an eye on Gaborik,” he said in an undertone. Bob cocked his head at him but nodded his understanding.

“Will have combox at all times,” he said. Jack squinted at him - he didn’t think Bob had really been with the crew long enough to have picked up their habit of teasing him about his communication obsession, but you never knew - but Bob’s expression was open and sincere, so he just clapped him on the shoulder.

“Good man,” he said. “ _Is_ there any sort of maintenance you need to do on the engine?”

Bob shrugged. “Always something to do. Have some tune-up can do fast, tweak some setting. Some need more time, will wait until longer stop.”

“Thanks,” Jack said. “And really, I don’t know if I ever said it, but thank you so much for getting her flying again.”

Bob grinned at him, sunny and open. “You said. But really, was pleasure. She is beautiful ship.”

“She is,” Jack agreed. “She’s really done a lot for me, too.” He laughed self-consciously. “But anyway, thanks. I’d better get to bed. Good night, Bob.”

Bob tipped his head. “Good night, Captain,” he said.

 

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“All right,” Jack said, turning on the combox. “Everyone check in.”

“Oooh, do we get codenames?” Wiz asked. Jack sighed.

“No, Wiz, and thank you, you’re good. Macy?”

“Gotcha.”

“Artem?”

“Here.”

Finally, Dubi checked in and Jack sat back in his chair and smiled. “All right then, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s get this thing started, shall we?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Wiz said. “We are atmospheric, you and Dubi are good to disengage at any point now.”

“Thanks, Wiz,” Jack said, sliding into the pilot’s seat. He glanced back at Matt and Cammie. “Strap in, guys, I’m not nearly as good a pilot as Wiz is.”

They both gulped and scrambled for their seat straps. Jack hid a smile as he turned back to the controls. “Alright, Wiz, disengaging in 3. . .2. . . 1. . .” He grinned as the shuttle peeled off and swooped away from the Blue Jacket.

“Always did like the fancy exit, didn’t you Johnson?” Wiz sounded amused in his ear. Jack laughed a little.

“Nothing wrong with having a little style, _James_.”

“Ouch. Point taken. I’m going to go and drop Macy and Artem off now. I’ll see you later.”

“Count on it,” Jack said, before turning his attention fully to piloting the shuttle. He swung a half circle around the spaceport until he found the spot he was looking for. He set the shuttle down with a thump that drew startled exclamations from both of his passengers. He cycled through the landing procedure before swinging around in his seat and grinning at both of them. “I did warn you,” he said.

“You didn’t say you were that bad,” Matt said, his eyes watering. “I almost bit through my tongue.”

“Them’s the breaks,” Jack said unsympathetically. “At least you weren’t riding with Dubi, he’s even worse at landing than I am. Now, c’mon, up and at ‘em.”

“Ugh,” Matt said eloquently, disentangling himself from his seat straps and standing up. He took a moment to straighten his uniform. “How do I look?”

“Boring,” Cammie said, deadpan. Matt opened his mouth to squawk in outrage but Jack cut him off.

“You look unremarkable, which is exactly what we’re going for, here, Matt. Now get in there! Macy and Artem are waiting for you to get back before they go in.”

“Right,” Matt said, straightening up and focusing. “I’ll be right back,” he said, exiting the shuttle. He ducked back in a few seconds later.

“Didn’t think even you were that fast, Matt,” Cammie said, snickering at him. He turned bright red as he grabbed his hacking satchel. “Bye!” she called after him. Jack groaned and let his head fall back against his headrest with a thunk.

“Very auspicious start, thanks Matt,” he muttered. Cammie poked him.

“We’re not supposed to be superstitious,” she informed him. “Macy says so.”

“Oh does she,” Jack said. “Macy says a lot of things. Has she been training you recently?” he asked, suddenly suspicious. Cammie nodded smugly and Jack let out a heartfelt groan. “Great. I am not buying you more guns,” he said, sternly. “Macy’s collection is large enough, she probably has a gun for every week of the year. You can borrow hers.” Cammie pouted at him. “Nope. Not going to happen.” He was saved from further puppy-dog eyes by the crackling of the communicator.

“What’s up, boss?”

“We are in position. Matt’s on his way in,” Jack said. “He hasn’t made it inside yet, though, so you might want to make another circle, Wiz.”

“I can get away with about five circles,” Wiz said. “There are some people who get superstitious about the number of times a spacecraft circles, so I can work with that. Any more than five, though, and I’m going to get hailed by ground control, asking why I haven’t landed yet.”

“I know that, Wiz,” Jack said, patient. “You told me earlier, we discussed it at length. With Matt. He also knows. Any reason you’re bringing it up now?”

“You know I babble when I get nervous,” Wiz said. Jack sighed.

“Babble at Artem then,” he said. “I need to keep the com lines clear so that I can tell you when Matt is in, and if you babble at Macy she’ll take your head off.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Wiz responded, and the line went dead. Jack glanced back at Cammie, who was messing with Matt’s computer.

“If you break that we’re going to have to come back,” he said, and she scowled at him.

“I know that. I wouldn’t. I just-”

“Hate waiting. It’s okay, we all do. But that is unfortunately what most of this job is, waiting. So put the computer down. I brought a deck of cards, you can play Solitaire.”

“Not poker?” she asked. Jack shook his head.

“I do need to be listening to the coms, not distracted trying to bluff you,” he said. Cammie quirked a small smile at him and began laying the cards out. The shuttle was silent for a while before the communicator crackled again.

“I’m in,” came Matt’s voice, lowered to avoid being overheard. “Looking around for an open console - wow this place is really well guarded. . . “ His voice trailed off. Jack let out a sigh.

“Wiz? He’s in. You can start coming in for your landing now.”

 

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“I’m in,” Matt muttered into his com as he ducked his head and gripped his satchel. The guard at the gate hadn’t even really looked at his ID, just sort of glanced at it and waved him in. He really hadn’t expected it to be that easy. “Looking around for an open console - wow this place is really well guarded. . . .”

He trailed off as he entered the building and realized that they must have saved all their security for the inside. There were guards patrolling the hallways in shifts and cameras covering every square inch of the facility. If he wanted a crack at an open console, he was going to have to come up with some sort of a distraction. Matt took a deep breath and called up the annotated map of the facility in his memory. The one camera blind spot that they’d been able to identify was around the corner and to the left, down the hallway.

He slowed his walk slightly, and managed to time his entrance into the hallway with the patrol team’s exit at the other end. He had about a 30 second window, according to the patrol schedule Artem had been able to get his hands on, and he picked up his pace slightly. He maneuvered himself into the camera’s blind spot with about ten seconds to spare, and hurriedly fished one of the microjammers he’d picked up on Osiris.  The microjammers only affected electronics in a 2 foot radius of their location, so he crouched down, said a prayer, and leaped upward, reaching as far up as he could get to attach the jammer to the wall. It stuck fast and blended in pretty well with the wall he’d managed to attach it to, and was only about a foot and a half away from the camera. He wanted to fist pump in triumph but managed to restrain himself and continue down the hallway as if nothing was wrong.

When he came to the end of the corridor he made a hard right and began circling back towards the central hub of the building. When he got there, there was no obvious commotion, which disheartened him some, but a pair of guards were heading swiftly towards the corridor where he’d planted the jammer. He changed direction towards the hallway they came from, knowing that he had a very brief window before his distraction was discovered and they came back to man their station.

He found an open terminal after only a few minutes of searching and hurried over to it, not even bothering to be subtle - theoretically, everyone who should be paying attention to this terminal was distracted by the jammed camera anyway. He fished the bug out of his satchel and bent over the terminal, searching for the right insertion port. He found it, inserted the bug, and spent another couple of precious seconds adjusting the terminal to make sure that the bug wasn’t easily visible. As soon as he was satisfied that it was hidden from view, he darted away from it before resuming his journey down the hallway. He was not a moment too soon - just as he managed to slow his pace back down to a reasonable speed, he saw a pair of guards start down towards the terminal station, most likely a replacement for the ones that had gone off to fix the camera he’d jammed.

“Okay, I’ve planted the bug,” he muttered into his radio mike as he turned down yet another hallway - how many hallways did they have in this place, anyway? - and headed for the exit. “I’m heading for the exit now, should be out in 15.”

 

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“All right, Jack says Matt is in, we are doing one last circle and then starting our descent.”

“Thanks, Wiz,” Macy said absently, forgetting that he couldn’t hear her as she smoothed her hands over her costume again. The rich fabrics were familiar under her fingers, and she had to fight back a scowl as she thought viciously that they should have picked someone (anyone) else for this. It wasn’t really Jack’s fault, though - he didn’t know that she’d spent most of her formative years wearing fabrics just like these and _hating them_ with a fiery passion. She’d run away to become a spacer so she’d never have to don another set of silks, and yet here she was, ten years and innumerable parsecs away from home, dressed just like she was about to go to the theater with her family.

On the bright side, however, it wasn’t like she was going to have to stretch to play her part. She’d seen her mother pull this exact same upper-class diva routine countless times. She could probably have done this part of the job in her sleep, and that was why she was so uneasy about the job, she rationalized. She wanted a challenge.

“Heading down now,” came Wiz’s voice over the intercom, and Macy snapped out of her thoughts with a shudder. She lifted her gaze from where it had been fixed over her hands in her lap and looked at Artem, who was affecting stoicism. Macy felt a brief spark of amusement, because she recognized that expression - Artem was clearly trying to copy Dubi’s “I am above your nonsense” stare. It was a pretty good imitation, Macy had to admit, but it had nothing on the original. What Artem lacked in psychological presence, however, he made up for in sheer physical bulk. He was easily the largest member of the crew, and had learned how to loom threateningly very fast. He made an acceptable bodyguard for the type of woman she was pretending to be.

Macy didn’t have anything against Artem, really - he was perfectly nice, and certainly the politest of the three junior crew members. But she would definitely have felt more comfortable with Dubi as her immediate backup. They’d been through enough together that she always knew where he’d be in a firefight. She trusted him even when he started in on his improvisation routine, which he was actually pretty damn good at. Which was, of course, why he’d been assigned the role that he had this time. Artem was an imperfect fit for this role, but he would do a perfectly adequate job nonetheless. Jack wouldn’t have given him the task if he thought Artem was unfit. She just hadn’t worked with Artem as much as she had worked with Dubi. She would be fine with Artem as soon as they had enough time to build up trust.

 

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“All right,” Cammie muttered, cracking her knuckles and leaning over Matt’s shoulder to get a better look at the computer screen. “Let’s do this thing.”

“You are a caricature of yourself,” Matt said, snorting. She smacked him over the head without taking her eyes from the screen.

“More finding of whiskey, less talking,” she said. She could feel Jack rolling his eyes from across the cabin.

“Okay, okay, yeesh,” Matt muttered. “So here are the cameras for the rooms Avery thought that the whiskey might be located,” he said, punching in a command and bringing up a list of options. “So we’re looking for-”

“Grey box, about 3 feet by 3 feet, serial number 42131155177217210.”

“That’s a really long serial number,” Matt muttered. “You memorized it?”

Cammie snorted. “Duh. I’m the one who has to go in and make sure it’s there, after all.”

“Huh. Still, that’s hard - I’ll see if I can pull up an inventory list, you look through the cameras. Does the case have any distinguishing marks?”

“Not that I know of,” she said, flicking through camera views as Matt opened up a second computer and logged onto the facility’s server. There was silence in the shuttle for a few minutes as both of them concentrated on their tasks before Matt let out an excited exclamation.

“According to the inventory, it should be in Holding Room 16.” Matt leaned across Cammie and jabbed at her screen. “Try that one.”

"No time for that," Jack interrupted. "Macy and Dubi are on their way in, you need to go now."  Cammie looked over at him, questioning, but he met her gaze steadily and jerked his head at the door, so she shoved her chair back and stood up. “Got it!” She shrugged into the jacket that was the final piece of her facility worker disguise and adjusted her hat. “Wish me luck,” she said, hurrying off the shuttle.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to be superstitious?” Jack said in her earpiece. She made a rude noise in response, and he laughed. “Good luck anyway, Cammie. Here’s hoping we won’t need it.”

 

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

The sound of a throat clearing brought Macy back to herself. “And we’re here. Matt’s placed the bug, he and Cammie are looking for the whiskey now. Good luck, you two,” Wiz said over the intercom. Artem pulled himself to attention - he was getting good at that, he must have practiced with Jack or Dubi on the trip - and led the way down the gangway. Macy followed at a sedate pace, smoothing her face into a haughty mask behind her veil.

Their progress wasn’t even halted at the gate - the guard there took one look at Artem’s stern expression and Macy’s outfit and waved them through. _What kind of shoddy security is this?_ Macy wondered as they entered the building. _Why did we go to all of this trouble if it’s going to be like - oh._

Apparently the terrible guards at the gate were merely a trap to lure potential thieves into a false sense of security, Macy thought to herself as she and Artem entered the lobby and were instantly the focus of at least four cameras and two pairs of armed guards. Macy ignored them all as best she could - worrying about her safety was her bodyguard’s job, not hers - and stepped forward to meet the uniformed man coming towards her imperiously.

“I believe that you have something of mine,” she said, tilting back her head slightly to look down her nose at him. “I should like to have it back.”


	4. Chapter 4

“I’m in,” Cammie muttered, pushing the cart she’d snagged from the loading dock down the hallway toward her destination. “What’s it looking like?”

“Macy’s got their attention,” Jack said in her earpiece after a moment. “Matt says to turn left up ahead, there’s a pair of guards coming down your hallway on patrol.” Cammie rolled her eyes a little at that – she was in disguise – but turned left down the hallway anyway. It couldn’t hurt to be a little careful about being seen.

“Turn right at the end of the hallway, then take the second right,” Jack said, and Cammie fixed her scowl at the back of her cart.

“I _did_ memorize the map,” she muttered crossly. “I know where I’m going.”

Jack didn’t say anything, which could either be him ignoring her on purpose or someone else demanding his attention. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves – it didn’t really help, but nothing really did when they were in such high stakes situations – and continued pushing her cart, adopting a sullen, bored expression.

She didn’t see any guards patrolling the hallways as she neared her destination, which only made her more nervous. She couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was just around the corner, waiting to jump out and catch her as soon as she turned her back. She knew that there wasn’t anyone there – distraction or annoyance aside, Jack would have warned her – but in her experience none of their plans ever ran smoothly for this long.

She finally made it to the storage room where they were keeping the whiskey and immediately wanted to slap herself for jinxing them. “Guys? We have an issue,” she muttered, staring at the chaos that had exploded all over the shelves.

“Go ahead,” Jack said immediately.

“It’s not exactly organized in here,” she said, glancing around the room again. “I don’t see the whiskey container anywhere – and it’s going to take me a while to dig through this mess.”

Jack swore. “All right,” he said, tightly. “I’ll let Macy and Dubi know they may have to buy you a little more time. Let me know when you’ve found it.”

“Copy that,” Cammie said, already moving to sort through the containers on the shelf nearest to her. “This is either the Alliance being really lazy, or really smart,” she muttered to herself as she went digging. “The sheer disorganization in here is probably their best security feature.”

0o0o0o0o0

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the security guard Macy had addressed said. “I can’t help you with that.”

Macy sniffed at his effrontery. “Then get me someone who can,” she ordered imperiously. “I am due to have lunch with the Secretary of the Treasury today, I don’t have time for this.”

“Right away, ma’am,” he said, lowering his head respectfully. “If you could follow me?” He got up from behind his desk and gestured for her to follow him. Artem fell in behind her and the guard eyed him professionally. “You’ll have to leave your weapons here,” he said. “No outside weapons are allowed in this facility.”

Artem ignored him and looked at her; Macy nodded at him approvingly. Dubi had given him a thorough coaching in bodyguard protocol and it looked like some of it had stuck. He pulled his weapons out of his holsters and handed them to the guard, who locked them in a cabinet behind his desk. Macy kept her expression carefully blank, although inwardly she gnashed her teeth at the waste of perfectly good weaponry. They’d bought it for expressly this purpose, she knew, but it galled her to leave good knives and guns behind intentionally.

“Right this way,” the guard said, leading them down the hallway towards what looked like a central administrative office. He deposited them in a waiting area and disappeared behind another door into what looked like a maze of offices.

“Whatever you said, it looks like someone just kicked an anthill in there,” Jack said in her earpiece as she fussed with her skirts before taking a seat. Artem stationed himself between her and the nearest door and assumed parade rest, flicking his eyes between the outer and inner doors. She was gratified to see that he was taking his role as her bodyguard seriously, although she was still uncomfortable with her own lack of weaponry.

“Good,” she said. There was silence for a few minutes, then Jack’s voice came back over her earpiece, sounding tense.

“Cammie’s run into a problem – the storage here is really disorganized, apparently, and she’s having to dig through a mess to find the containers. We may need you to buy more time.”

Macy thought several curse words very distinctly, keeping her face blank and smooth. “Is there any guarantee that the whiskey is located where we think it is, then?” she muttered, trying not to move her lips at all. Jack was silent for a moment before swearing roundly.

“No,” he said tightly. “None at all. Best to start praying.”

_Fat lot of good that’ll do now_ , Macy thought to herself, but she didn’t say anything. Instead she took a deep breath and exchanged a look with Artem, who had managed to maintain his blank face through that entire conversation, just as the door into the back offices opened and a young woman in an Alliance uniform beckoned them back.

“If you’ll follow me,” she said, before turning and leading them into the maze of offices. Macy took careful note of the turnings, trying to commit them to memory so that she wouldn’t have any trouble getting back out. It felt like it took forever for them to make their way to a door marked “B. Shanahan – Facility Manager” but it was only a short walk. Their guide knocked on the door before sticking her head in. “People here to see you, sir.”

“Bring them in,” came a voice from the other side of the door. Their guide pulled the door open and gestured for them both to go in. Artem went in first and Macy swept in after him, putting on her most determined glare.

B. Shanahan – the name sounded vaguely familiar - got up and came around from behind his desk to greet them. “I’m sorry to hear you’ve had trouble, Ms…”

“Letestu,” Macy said. In her peripheral vision she saw Artem’s eyes widen in shock, then immediately smooth back down into his blank bodyguard façade. B. Shanahan’s eyes widened as well, and he nodded respectfully at her.

“Ms. Letestu,” he said. “How can I help you?”

“You could start by returning my jewelry, which has been wrongfully confiscated,” Macy said, spreading her skirts and sitting down pointedly in the chair across from Shanahan’s desk. He colored slightly as he crossed back behind his desk and sat down himself.

“I would be more than happy to,” he said smoothly. “You have the paperwork?”

Macy’s eyes narrowed. “You doubt my word?” she asked dangerously.

Shanahan looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, Ms. Letestu. It’s merely a formality, but I’m afraid I will have to insist.”

She sniffed her opinion of this development but gestured at Artem, who reached into his jacket pocket and produced their papers. Shanahan looked over them and nodded, getting up.

“If you’ll wait here, please,” he said. Macy looked up at him.

“If we must,” she said, pleasantly but with an edge. “I am due for lunch with the Secretary of the Treasury in half an hour. I would hate to tell him I was late because of your people’s incompetence.”

Shanahan went a shade paler but nodded at her politely. “I will do my best to return your property with all due speed,” he promised, before leaving the office. There was a brief moment of silence, then Artem turned on Macy with wide eyes, making sure to keep his back to the camera in the corner.

“You gave him your _real name_?”

She smiled at him wryly, not that he could see much of her behind the veil she was wearing. “It’s a very well-known name, in certain circles. I thought it might buy us a little more time – not many people will lie about being a Letestu.” The family tended to frown on being impersonated, and made the impersonator’s life very unpleasant. Macy might be a black sheep, but she still was a Letestu, and entitled to use the name if she chose.

“I didn’t know that,” Artem said, frowning. Macy shook her head.

“Unless you know a lot of people in the rare gems and jewelry business, you wouldn’t. And it’s not exactly something I advertise,” she said, a hint of warning in her tone. Artem’s face cleared.

“I won’t tell,” he promised, and Macy settled back in her chair.

“Thank you,” she said. “You’ve been doing an excellent bodyguard impersonation.”

“Thanks,” he said, a hint of red along his cheekbones. Conversation apparently over, he took up his position again and they sat in silence, waiting for Shanahan to come back.

0o0o0o0o0

“Any luck yet?” came Jack’s voice over Cammie’s earpiece, and she grunted as she shifted a particularly large container to the side.

“Not. . . yet,” she said, pushing aside yet another large container that was obscuring her view of the back of the shelf. “How’s the diversion going?”

“No red flags yet,” Jack reported after a moment. “Matt’s monitoring the system. He’s got the cameras in your room on a loop, so you should be good for a while.”

“Good to know,” she said absently, paying more attention to digging through the shelves. She’d managed to investigate the first three sections by the door and was slowly working her way further into the room.

She worked her way through another two shelves, moving as fast as she could while still being thorough. She was trying to stay calm but her nerves were on high alert, ready to jump at the slightest provocation. Just as she was about to move on to the next shelf, something caught the corner of her eye. She spun around and crossed over to other side of the room, pushing aside the smaller container just in front of it and – yes!

“Found it!” she hissed, working to clear a space around it so that she could get it off the shelf. Just as she was doing this, though, the door behind her hissed open and another worker dressed in the same uniform entered the room. He caught sight of her just as the door closed and his eyes widened.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said, blank, but she had crossed the distance between them and reached for one of the pressure points Macy had taught her before he had a chance to say anything else. He slipped to the floor, unconscious, and she hurried back over to pick up the whiskey container and pack it onto her cart, along with a couple of other, smaller containers.

“Cammie, you need to get out of there,” Jack’s voice came over her earpiece, tense. “They just realized that Matt had the camera on a loop, they’re resetting the system – you need to be out of there before they get it back online.”

“Roger that,” she said, grabbing the unconscious man under his arms and hauling him out of the doorway. “Leaving now.”

“Keep your head down,” Jack instructed as she opened the door and wheeled her cart out into the hallway. “Matt thinks it’ll take about a minute and a half for the system to come back online, so get as far away as possible and then look like you’re coming from the opposite direction, if you can.”

“If I can,” Cammie echoed grimly, already hearing the sound of guards in the distance, coming to investigate. She pushed the cart as fast as she could, bringing up the map of the facility in her mind’s eye – if she turned down the corridor up ahead to the right, she would be around a blind corner, she should be able to turn the cart around and act like she’d been coming from that direction the entire time. She tried to quicken her pace even more as the sounds of the guards grew closer, ducking around the corner just as she heard them burst into the hallway. She paused for a moment to take a few gulping breaths, trying to calm her heartbeat down and get her breathing back into some semblance of normalcy before wiping her sweaty palms on her uniform and pushing her cart back out into the hallway.

0o0o0o0o0

“Ms. Letestu,” Shanahan said, coming back into his office in a breeze of paperwork, “Could you describe the jewelry that you’re looking for?”

Macy straightened her spine. “You have the paperwork,” she said. “You need more than that?”

He pursed his lips. “I’m afraid we’re having difficulty locating them,” he said. “In fact, there is no record of our receiving a kind of shipment of this kind,” he waved the papers that Artem had given him, “at all. So I’m sure you can understand my confusion.”

“She found it!” Jack’s voice came in Macy’s earpiece, and her heart thumped with excitement for just that brief moment before his voice went low and tight again. “ _Shit_.”

“Ms. Letestu?” came Shanahan’s voice, and Macy jerked her eyes up to meet his through the veil. He was looking at her calmly, which sent a frisson of worry through her.

“Yes?” she said, her voice sounding calm and bored even though her nerves were shrieking with the strain of holding her bluff. “You say they are not here? Perhaps they were sent to another holding facility.”

Shanahan’s eyes flashed, and Macy felt something sink inside her. She’d hoped, for a wild moment, that they might be able to get out of this intact, without needing one of Jack’s elaborate back-up plans. That the power of her bluff and her family’s name might carry them through. “Do you know, Ms. Letestu – it is Ms. Letestu, isn’t it? – I had a very similar thought. So I asked our computer tech to widen his search.” He moved forward, and his movements felt predatory. “He couldn’t find a single mention of any of our facilities receiving a shipment of this kind. I thought it must be some kind of mistake, but he doesn’t make mistakes.” Macy felt Artem shifting next to her, responding to Shanahan’s closeness. “So I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come with me, for questioning.”

When Shanahan reached out to touch her, Artem responded, moving to shove him away violently. But instead of flying backward, as most people did when Artem shoved at them like that, Shanahan gripped his arms and _twisted_ , and Macy was suddenly reminded forcefully of why his name had sounded familiar. _Shanahan_ – Captain Brendan Shanahan of the Alliance, apparently now retired and running an Alliance holding facility, but not entirely without his old skills. He subdued Artem easily. Macy was quietly, burningly furious that she had let Artem tangle with him alone, that she was more hindrance than help, wrapped in layers as she was.

“Ms. Letestu?” he asked, the soul of courtesy even holding her bodyguard motionless with one hand. Macy arose from her seat regally, smoothing her skirts with hands that had gone icy with nerves.

“I see I have no choice in the matter,” she said, holding her head high and sweeping past him disdainfully. There was a hint of admiration in his eyes for a moment, she thought, before he inclined his head and led her down the hallway and into the much smaller interrogation room.

“Now,” he said. “Explain to me, please, why are you really here?”

0o0o0o0o0

“Shit,” Jack swore viciously, pushing himself back away from the combox and pacing back over to where Matt was hunched over his computer. “What’s going on?”

“I can’t see anything,” Matt said tensely, typing furiously in an attempt to bring something, anything, back online. “I saw them figure out Macy and Artem’s paperwork was bogus, but I have no idea how they did that, it wasn’t anything built into the system as far as I can tell, so I couldn’t stop it until it was too late. Did you send Dubi in?”

“As soon as we realized that they’d caught Macy and Artem, he went.”

Matt’s head flew up. “He went that fast?”

Jack scowled. “Not quite that fast. He’s got at least a little sense – he’ll be pushing the limits of plausible deniability but he might still have some.”

Matt bent his head back over the computer and scowled, typing in some more things. “He won’t have _any_ if I can’t get back into the system in time,” he said. “And it’s not rebooting as fast as I thought it would.”

“Are you going to be able to get back in?” Jack asked, dread congealing in his stomach. Matt gave him a bleak look.

“It was already going to take me longer to get back in the second time, just to make sure that I checked for traps. With how long it’s taking the system to get back online, I might not get back in in time to do anything.”

“ _Shit_ ,” Jack swore again, stalking back over to the combox. “Cammie? Talk to me, we’re flying blind here.”

“I passed the first group of guards without getting any suspicious looks – they were just headed straight for the room to check it out. The second group gave me a couple of weird looks but I turned down another hallway and they didn’t follow me, but I’m not headed anywhere near an exit and if I come back out with a full cart _someone’s_ going to stop me, I’m pretty sure.” She sounded tense and frightened, and Jack bit back another curse as he grabbed for a map of the facility and pulled it onto the table, staring at it intently.

“Their cameras are still down,” he said, glaring at the map as though he could get it to give up its secrets through will alone. “Duck into one of the storerooms that has an interconnecting door and use that to bypass the hallway for a while, then come out and start heading for the nearest exit, no matter which one it is. I’ll bring the shuttle around to meet you.”

“What about Macy and Dubi and Artem?” Cammie asked, sounding very young all of the sudden. Jack swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“We’ll get them out too,” he promised her, even though he had no idea how they were going to accomplish that. He had never lied to his crew, and he wasn’t going to start now.

0o0o0o0o0

Wiz had been slouching in his comfortable pilot’s chair, staring broodingly at his radio and willing it to come to life for a million yars. Bob had finished his maintenance job not that long ago and had come to join him, bringing Gaborik with him to the silent vigil for their crewmates. Except for the occasional hiss of static as Jack skipped over their channel on his way to another, the radio was silent.

Jack’s voice, heavy with unspoken dread, broke the quiet. “Wiz? You there?”

“Go ahead, Captain,” Wiz said, lunging forward out of his seat and grabbing the radio. “How’s it going?”

“Not good,” Jack said, and Wiz heard most of what he wasn’t saying in the tense tone of his voice. “We need a backup plan for the backup plan.”

“Uh,” Wiz said, thrown at that. “And you’re talking to me instead of Dubi because?”

“Because Dubi was the backup plan, and he just got caught.” Wiz’s head jerked up at that, and he exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Bob.

“Ahh.” Wiz was stunned into silence for a moment at that, and heard Jack huff something that under normal circumstances he was sure would have been a laugh. Bob shrugged at him helplessly, clearly at a loss for words, before Gaborik leaned forward and cleared his throat.

“If I may,” he said, hesitantly. “I believe I have something that might be of help. If you are willing to trust me.”

Jack was silent on the other end of the radio for so long that Wiz thought he might not have heard him. He was about to clear his throat and repeat Gaborik’s offer when Jack blew out a heavy breath and laughed mirthlessly. “Why not? What’ve you got?”

0o0o0o0o0

Macy glared at Dubi from behind the cover of her veil as a pair of guards escorted him into the interrogation room. All three of them were a little scuffed looking, so apparently he’d put up a fight, just not enough of one to get away. She was aware that it was unfair of her to think that even as she thought it, but Dubi didn’t take stupid risks very often, and she was worried that she knew why he’d taken this one.

“Ahh, Mr. Callahan. Please, join us,” Shanahan said from his place opposite Macy and Artem, sipping on a cup of water. “I believe you know Ms. Letestu and Mr. Burke?”

Dubi hesitated, probably from a combination of trying to decide how best to play this and being thrown by Shanahan’s use of Macy’s real name. Eventually he nodded, curtly, moving to sit between Macy and Artem.

“Good, good,” Shanahan said, reaching for the pitcher on the table and offering Dubi a cup of water. He refused, just as Macy and Artem had, and Shanahan shrugged, refilling his own glass. “We were just having an extremely interesting chat. Perhaps you’d care to add to it?”

“I doubt it,” Dubi said, and Macy resisted the urge to jab him with her elbow for deliberately antagonizing Shanahan. Not that Shanahan appeared antagonized – he simply took another sip of his water and raised an eyebrow.

“No? Your appearance has already answered a number of questions – namely, did anyone else know that they were here? Which begs the question, however – who else knows that you are here? And what did you want?”

Dubi scowled at him but remained silent, which didn’t seem to faze Shanahan at all. In fact, Macy thought, this was easily the strangest interrogation she’d ever been a part of, on either side of the table. Shanahan didn’t seem to mind that he wasn’t getting answers to his questions, he just seemed – amused. And like he was waiting for something – or someone. Macy felt a chill slip down her spine at that realization.

Jack had originally considered trying to pass Dubi off as an Alliance interrogator, but they’d eventually decided not to try that. They had reasoned that interrogators were used, as far as they knew, only for questioning prisoners of extreme importance. They hadn’t considered that a group of people trying to break into a secure Alliance holding facility might be interesting enough to warrant one.

Shanahan asked a few more questions and received monosyllables or silence from the three of them. It only seemed to increase his amusement. Macy fought the urge to turn in her seat so that she could face the door, wanting to at least be able to see her fate. Shanahan was taking another sip of water as a prelude to asking yet another question when she heard the door open behind her.

“Mr. Shanahan, sir,” said a respectful voice. “There’s a gentleman here to see you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh I'm so sorry it took me this long to update! In my defense, I moved halfway across the country and started school in the meantime, but clearly this is unacceptable. I promise the next (final!) chapter will not take me nearly as long.


	5. Chapter 5

Cammie paused next to the door. “Have you got the cameras back yet?”

“He says not yet,” Jack reported after a brief pause. “It doesn’t sound like he’s going to be able to get them up anytime soon, either. You’re going to have to come out of there eventually, you know – the longer you stick around the greater your chances are of being caught.”

“I know that,” Cammie said, frustrated. “I just – I’m going to grab a couple more things, okay, and then I’ll come out.”

“All right,” Jack said, voice tight. “Let me know where you’re coming out, I’ll have the shuttle there to meet you.”

“The door on the southwest corner,” Cammie said promptly, thinking over her route. It wasn’t the closest door to her position, but it was towards the back of the facility and had the advantage of being near the loading docks. Jack made an affirmative noise.

“We’ll be there,” he said. Cammie scowled at the door and turned her back on it. She knew she was being ridiculous but she felt the circumstances justified it – everything had fallen apart in the worst possible way, she was entitled to a few more minutes hiding in a storage room.

“What to take, what to take,” she muttered, running her hands over the shelves and peering curiously at the labels. This base used an unfamiliar code to mark their holding containers – she probably could have figured it out if she’d had more time to study it, but they’d spent the entire trip to Ariel trying to figure out how best to run this job, which hadn’t left a lot of time for detail work. She shrugged mentally and grabbed a few smaller containers from the shelves, taking her time to arrange them on her cart for maximum stability and aerodynamics. When she reached out to tweak the way they were arranged for the third time, she took a deep breath and put her hands back on the cart handle instead.

“You can do this,” she told herself firmly. “It’s not any different from what you did to come in here.” Except it was – her confidence had been badly shaken by the way the plan had appeared to disintegrate. She hesitated a moment more before a voice that sounded an awful lot like her Great-Aunt Meredith’s said _For God’s sake, Camilla, you have a backbone. Use it!_

“Yes, ma’am,” Cammie said, smiling a little at the thought of her aunt. She took one last deep breath and pushed the door open, wheeling her cart out into the hallway. “I’m on my way out,” she muttered into her communicator. “ETA 10 minutes.”

“Roger that,” came Matt’s voice in her earpiece. “I should have the cameras back up in the next minute or so – keep your head down.”

“Yes, _Jack_ ,” Cammie retorted. She did keep her head down as much as possible, keeping herself from glancing up too often by sheer force of will as she navigated the hallways. Two right turns, then a left – she passed a pair of patrolling guards. They didn’t say anything or look at her oddly, but she felt herself tense as she was passing them. She made the final turn into the last hallway, and relaxed as she saw the door. It was a mistake.

A pair of guards rounded the corner when she was halfway down the hallway. One of them called after her.

“Hey, you!”

Cammie resisted the urge to flinch, barely, and sped up slightly. “I have guards on my tail,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Right outside the door,” Matt said. “What do you want us to do?”

“Hey, stop!” the guard called again. He sounded closer. Cammie didn’t let herself turn around and look, just sped up a little more.

“Open the door- need a quick takeoff” she said. “It’s going to be close.” She broke into a run, ignoring the shouts of the guards behind her. One of them was shouting at headquarters to lock the southwest corner door but he was too late – Cammie had reached the door and rammed it open without slowing down, shoving her way out of the building as fast as possible. And there was the shuttle – Jack had the engine running and Matt was standing at the door holding a gun to cover her, and Cammie almost sobbed in relief as she heaved the cart over the threshold and Jack took off before they could even get the door closed. The last thing she saw as they flew off was the pair of guards who had been chasing her taking aim at the shuttle. It was no use, though – they were too far away already.

 

0o0o0o0o0

“Sorry about that,” Jack said into the radio, taking a deep breath and trying to organize his thoughts. “We had to go and get Cammie. We’re fine now – parked in an alleyway a couple of miles from the facility. What was Gaborik saying?” 

“He. . . . Interrogator,” came Wiz’s reply, crackling and broken up by static. “Paperwork. . . . legitimate.”

Matt and Cammie’s heads both shot up from where they were working on unpacking the cart. Jack frowned at the combox. “Say again? You’re breaking up, Wiz.”

Matt went back to his screen and worked at it for a moment before leaning back in his seat and frowning. “It looks like there’s a big electrical storm brewing not far from here,” he said, spinning it around to show the map to Jack. “It’s interfering with the radio communication. I could maybe fix it if I had some of my specialized stuff, but I left all that back on the ship.”

“Shit,” Jack said, turning back to the combox and thumping it viciously on the side as though that would cause it to start working properly. “Did you catch any of what he was saying earlier, about what Gaborik’s gone in there to do?”

“It sounded like he said Gaborik’s an Alliance interrogator,” Matt said, sounding reluctant.

“That’s what I thought, but I don’t buy it,” Jack sighed. “Wiz? Can you repeat?”

“. . . . torture. . . .” came the staticky response from the combox, which caused the three of them to exchange horrified looks. Jack swore even more viciously, shoving away from his seat and pacing the length of the shuttle. The silence spun out uncomfortably before Matt spoke up.

“So basically what I got from that,” he ventured, “was that Gaborik really is actually an Alliance Interrogator, he has legitimate paperwork and he’s going to torture them. Am I missing anything?”

“That’s about what I got from it too,” Jack said tightly. Matt swallowed and Cammie’s eyes grew dark and scared. “We’ll do something,” he promised, and both of them went back to unloading the cart and stowing the containers around the shuttle as Jack shut his eyes and pressed his palms to his face, trying to physically force plans out of his brain.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

The door opened wider, and Shanahan nodded sharply at the newcomer.

“Marian,” he greeted him. “I haven’t seen you in years."

“It has been a long time,” Gaborik said gravely. “I see you have been busy, Brendan. You have prisoners for me?”

Shanahan gestured at the three of them. “Attempted fraud. We have reason to believe that there are more of them – someone managed to hack into our security system and was tampering with it.”

“Has anything been taken?”

“We’re working on that now,” Shanahan said stiffly. Gaborik nodded at him.

“I will certainly do my best to assist in that effort,” he said, placing the case he’d been carrying on the table. He reached into it and had Macy, Dubi and Artem cuffed to their chairs before they had quite realized what was happening. He glanced over at Shanahan. “If you will excuse me, Brendan?”

“Of course,” Shanahan said, getting up and exiting the room gracefully. Gaborik turned to face the three of them, his face utterly expressionless. He opened the case and drew out a tube filled with a red liquid.

“Who will be first?”

Macy bit the inside of her lip in order to stifle all of the curses she wanted to throw at the ungrateful bastard. Artem had no such compunctions.

“You _fucker_ , you set us up-“

“So you will be first. Good to know. Hold still.” Gaborik came over and seized Artem’s chin in one hand, tilting his head and drawing a line across his cheekbone in the red liquid as Artem cursed and thrashed as best he could in the cuffs. “Stop squirming,” Gaborik ordered, sounding impatient. “This will not hurt, stupid.”

“That part comes later, right?” Artem snarled, still trying to jerk his head away. “You sick freak-“

Gaborik let go of his face and stared down at him. “I am trying,” he said, enunciating each word clearly, “to save your life, or at least to save you a good deal of pain. It will work better if you will _hold still_.” He grabbed Artem’s face again and continued drawing on it, taking advantage of Artem’s startled stillness to complete the first line and begin a second across his other cheekbone.

“How is this saving my life?” Artem asked, jerking his head away again. Gaborik sighed and let go of his face, turning to grab Dubi.

“It is making you look as though I have interrogated you without you having to endure the torture,” he said, giving Dubi a sharp look as he tried to jerk his head away. “Hold _still_ , stupid. Fake blood never hurt anyone.”

“Fake blood?” Artem asked, and Macy looked over him. He did in fact look as though he’d had two lines cut across his cheeks with a sharp knife. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I can,” Gaborik snapped. “Now shut up and hold still, it will take longer to make you look beaten than it would to beat you.”

It took a little more than a standard hour for him to finish with them. The whole process took place in silence punctuated occasionally by Gaborik telling them to do something – tilt your head this way, or that way, don’t blink, etc. He never took the cuffs off – when Artem complained that his hands were falling asleep, Gaborik told him “I can hide the stage makeup much easier than I can hide you with your hands free if he comes back before I am done. Tilt your head forward.”

When he was finished, he studied each of them in turn. “Look defeated,” he said. “All the work I have just done does you no good if you act as though I have never touched you.”

“Is this actually going to work?” Artem asked, shrugging his shoulder as best he could to gesture to his face.

Gaborik shrugged. “Interrogation rooms are soundproofed and have no cameras. The courts do not allow evidence that was gained by torture, and so they have made certain that there is no way to prove that torture was used.”

There was silence in the room as Artem digested that. Macy had forgotten how young he was. “That’s sick,” he finally said. Gaborik jerked his head in agreement.

“It is,” he said. “But it is logical. The Alliance is very logical. They never go in circles when they might instead use a straight line.” He looked for a moment as though he was lost in memories, then shook himself briskly. “Make sure to look defeated. I will go and give my report to Shanahan now, and I will make sure you are released into my custody.”

“Thank you,” Macy said, the first time she had spoken since Gaborik had entered the room. He gave her a short, sharp nod before turning on his heel and striding out of the room. Macy slumped in her chair, letting herself hang as though the fact that she was cuffed to it was the only thing keeping her upright. In her peripheral vision she saw Dubi and Artem adopting similar postures. Macy closed her eyes and prayed, as best as she was able, that it would be enough to convince Shanahan.

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“All right, any ideas on how to get off the planet?” Wiz asked Bob, who was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat.

“Would be best if not recognized,” Bob said, but dipped his head in acknowledgement of Wiz’s disbelieving snort. “Without time to give new paint job, best option is for stealth. You have patrol schedules?”

“Not on me,” Wiz said, turning to his computer and typing some things in, “but I can look them up _really_ quickly – here we go.”

The two men bent over the map that showed the typical patrol patterns of the Alliance ships in orbit around Ariel. Finally Bob pointed to a spot on the map. “Here,” he said. “No ships for next four hours.”

Wiz called up the weather patterns in the area and whistled. “Because there’s a _massive thunderstorm_ ,” he said, showing Bob the relevant screen. “No wonder we were having trouble getting through to Jack. Will the ship be able to hold up under that?” Bob just looked insulted.

“Ship is solid, perfect. No problem with good pilot.” He slid Wiz a challenging look. “You say you not good enough? Let little storm beat you?”

“Oh fuck you,” Wiz said, glaring. “Shut up and watch me.”

Bob sat back, looking smug. “Now just need rest of crew,” he said. Wiz sighed and swiveled back around, peering out the front viewscreen at the entrance to the facility.

“Think they should be out by now?” Bob shrugged.

“Depends on Gaborik. Should com Jack, tell about plan.”

“If we can get through to him,” Wiz said, but he pulled the combox towards him anyway.

It was a struggle. Wiz outlined the plan as clearly as he could – he had no idea where Jack and his shuttle were located, after all, although Bob was fighting with the computer off to the side to see if he could locate them – but he wasn’t sure how much Jack was getting. He seemed to have a lot of questions, and Wiz was pretty sure he caught the words _Gaborik_ and _torture_ several times, which, had Jack managed to understand that part of the plan?

“Have you found them yet?” he asked Bob in an undertone as Jack squawked an unintelligible question through the communicator. Bob shook his head and Wiz sighed. “Say again, Jack, and slower – you didn’t get through.”

“How. . . . .long,” Jack wanted to know, but Wiz had no idea what he was talking about. How long until they meet up? How long had Gaborik been in there? How long was their window of opportunity?

“I don’t know!” he said, frustrated. “Where are you?”

“Alley,” came back Jack’s response.

“Lovely, that’s helpful,” Wiz said, as Bob swore in Russian. “What is it?” he asked, leaning over, and Bob showed him his computer screen, now completely filled with static fuzz. “ _Shit_.”

“Shit,” Bob agreed.

“Well, it looks like we’ll be making this one up as we go along,” Wiz said. “Think we need a backup plan?”

“Backup plan? Do not even have first plan. But no, no time. Look, there – Gaborik has Macy and Dubi and Artem,” Bob said, pointing at the entrance to the facility.

“Oh good,” Wiz said with feeling. “Jack? We’ve got the rest of the crew incoming. We’ll meet you at the edge of town – I really hope you heard some of that,” he said, turning off the communicator and cycling up the ship’s engine in preparation for take-off. “Wait, where are they going?”

“Not here,” Bob said, looking confused. Wiz flailed around in his chair, looking for the controls that would allow him to focus the viewscreen on the forms of the four prodigal crewmembers.

“They’re turning the corner – oh, shit, what if Gaborik really was an Alliance agent? That would be just our luck.”

“No,” Bob said, although he didn’t sound very sure about it. The two of them stared at each other in horror for a moment. “Need backup plan,” Bob finally said, and Wiz glared at him.

“No, really? We need Jack for that,” Wiz said, gesturing at the communicator, which was hissing a constant stream of static now, not even interspersed with words. “I’m bad with plans, everyone knows that-“

“Bad with plans no excuse,” Bob said firmly, but he was interrupted by the communicator squawking at him.”

“ _Blue Jacket_ , can you hear me?”

It was Gaborik. Wiz exchanged a look with Bob even as he reached for the communicator. “This is the _Blue Jacket_ ,” he said cautiously.

“I’ve commandeered the shuttle Dubi arrived in,” Gaborik said briskly. “It would be best if we rendezvoused somewhere far from here.”

“Yeah, about that,” Wiz said. “We’ve lost contact with the other shuttle.”

“ _What do you mean, lost contact?_ ” That was Macy. Wiz flinched. “How did you lose contact with them?”

“There’s a huge electrical storm not that far from here,” Wiz explained. “Frankly I’m surprised we have contact with you guys.” There was a brief silence before Dubi’s voice came over the line.

“He’d have gone north, to hide in the alleyways,” he said. “So we’ll go south at first, while you go north. We’ll meet up five miles east of here, by the bluff.”

“Okay,” Wiz said, glad that someone else was in charge of making the plan. “Sounds good. Any ideas on how I should find Jack?”

“You say there’s an electrical storm interfering with communication?” Artem asked.

“Yep. It’s pretty bad, too – we’re going to try and get out using it as cover, since no one in their right mind would try to fly in it.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Macy said, before Artem broke back in.

“I think I figured it out,” he said. “The shuttles operate on a slightly different frequency than the ship. The storm's having more of an effect on you than it is on us.”

“So that means. . . “ Wiz said, confused.

“If we can get close enough to Jack’s shuttle we might be able to talk to them,” Dubi said. “But you probably won’t be able to talk to us.”

“Ahh,” Wiz said, and Bob nodded his own comprehension. “All right then. Good luck. We will meet you by the bluff,” he said before he handed the communicator to Bob and cracked his knuckles. “Let’s play hide and seek in the dark.”

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

Matt had been tampering with the combox for the past couple of minutes, trying to figure out how to boost the signal and cut through the interference from the storm. He wished desperately for his kit back on the _Blue Jacket_ – he’d only brought along what he needed to hack into the Alliance’s security system, which was useless for tinkering with their communications equipment.

“It’s no use,” he finally said, sitting back on his hands and looking up at Jack, feeling defeated. “If I had my full kit, I could probably do something to cut through the interference. As it is, I can’t even boost the power. Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Matt,” Jack said, coming over and putting a hand on his shoulder. Cammie nodded from where she was sitting huddled up on one of the passenger’s seats, but Matt turned his back on them angrily.

“I got kicked out of the system and screwed up the whole plan,” he said, wiping away angry tears. Jack grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Hey. Hey, listen to me,” he said. Matt looked down at his hands, but Jack was insistent. “It wasn’t your fault. No one could have predicted that, and you got back in as quick as you could.”

“Still wasn’t quick enough,” Matt grumbled, giving his hands a betrayed look. Jack sighed, exasperated.

“Nothing ever goes according to plan,” he said, flopping down into the pilot’s seat and stare broodingly out the window. Matt shot a quick look at him, but Jack wasn’t paying him any attention. “The best laid plans,” he said, almost under his breath. “Well, we definitely don’t have those now. What was I thinking, trusting him?” he asked, bitterly. “I should have known better.”

He straightened up in his chair and opened his mouth, and Matt could tell he was about to come up with some crazy way the three of them were going to rescue everyone but the communicator chose that moment to pipe up from where it was partially dismantled on the floor.

“Jack? Can you hear me?”

The three of them stared at the communicator before all diving for it at once. Jack grabbed it first.

“Dubi? What the fuck?”

 

0o0o0o0o0

 

“I’d like an explanation, now,” Macy said, as soon as the _Blue Jacket_ cleared the atmosphere. Her calm tone was belied by her lips, which had thinned to virtual nonexistentence. Gaborik nodded wearily, rubbing a hand over his head. Jack looked quickly around – he still wasn’t able to stop checking up on his crew, wincing at the wounds that Macy, Dubi and Artem all appeared to have. Even smeared in the excitement of takeoff, the fake blood looked grotesque. Gaborik cleared his throat, and Jack turned his attention back to him.

“I was born on Higgins’ Moon, in the town of Canton,” Gaborik began. “My family worked in the mud pits there. I didn’t want to, though, so when I was about 14 years old I stowed away on a trading ship and left.”

“I fail to see how this is relevant,” Macy said coldly, and Gaborik looked up at her with tired eyes.

“It will become relevant presently,” he said. “I was discovered, and the ship’s captain took a liking to me and began teaching me spacecraft. I worked as a spacer with him and his company for a few years before I was recruited by Alliance Intelligence. They offered me money.” His mouth twisted. “I was a greedy little thing, then. I jumped at it.”

“I was a double agent, during the war,” Gaborik said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs. “My paperwork is all legitimate, I did train as an interrogator at one point; they just never bothered taking me out of the system.” Jack felt Dubi stiffen next to him, but he remained silent. “It was part of why they recruited me – I had the exact right background to be believable as an Independent.” He let out a humorless laugh. “It was what ended up biting them in the ass in the end – they didn’t have as much time to program me as they’d have liked, and I decided that I liked the way the Independents thought. So I switched sides and helped prevent a couple nasty disasters.” His mouth twisted. “Couldn’t prevent Serenity Valley, though. And then people got to talking – what if he wasn’t really on our side, what if he was still passing information to the enemy? The Independent Council jumped at the chance to put the blame for that clusterfuck on anyone but themselves, and so I was branded a traitor.”

“Did the Alliance ever find out that you were working for the Browncoats?” Dubi asked quietly. Gaborik looked thoughtful but shook his head.

“I don’t believe they ever noticed, to tell you the truth,” he said. “I was one of many agents, and my posting wasn’t a particularly important one. They had more important things to worry about.”

Jack could see Dubi restraining himself from saying something, and he made a mental note to find out what it was later. Gaborik continued his story, “I drifted from place to place, after that – never stayed long on any one world. My reputation kept catching up to me, you see.” _And not all worlds are terribly Browncoat-friendly,_ Jack thought, remembering where they had found him. There was a brief silence, as Gaborik appeared to be lost in thought, until Macy cleared her throat. Gaborik looked up at her, startled, then gestured at her. “Did you have any other questions?”

“Where the fuck did you get the stage makeup?” Macy asked him.

“I bought it during the war,” he said, a faraway look in his eyes. “Just in case I needed to use it for something like this, and never got rid of it. It comes in useful, sometimes, when I am traveling – the newcomer with the unfortunate facial scars doesn’t typically get linked back to Marian Gaborik, traitor to the cause.”

“Why did you do that?” she asked. “You didn’t have to help, so why did you?”

“I owed your captain a debt,” Gaborik said, looking over at Jack. “He did not have to help, either, but he did – it seemed like the least I could do, under the circumstances. A beating for a beating.”

Dubi choked and Jack shifted uncomfortably. There was more at stake here than there had been in that bar. Gaborik continued as if he hadn’t noticed (Jack was willing to bet that he noticed _everything_ , especially if he’d been trained by Alliance intelligence), “Besides, I do not like the Alliance. It is a pleasure to be able to thwart them, even in such a small way.”

Macy inclined her head regally. “Thank you,” she said, and all of the crew echoed it. “We are in your debt, now.” Gaborik shook his head, but Macy held firm. “A few bruises are nothing compared to time in prison. We’re in your debt. You might as well accept it,” she said, a hint of a crooked smile on her face. “We’re stubborn.”

Gaborik laughed a little at that, rueful. “I had noticed. Very well.”

Macy smiled like the cat who had gotten the cream, and Jack noticed Cammie, Matt and Artem eyeing Gaborik with interest. He groaned silently – Gaborik was new, and he was interesting. The three of them would no doubt make pests of themselves trying to hear old war stories. He made a mental note to have a word with them about it before turning to Wiz.

“How long until we make it back?” he asked. Wiz looked down at his instruments, and then over at Bob, who shrugged at him.

“Couple of days,” he said. “Longer than I’d originally anticipated. II’d like to make sure we aren’t being followed, but we should be back within the time we told Avery.”

“Thanks, Wiz,” Jack said, clapping him on the back. “Everyone go and get some rest,” he said, turning to the rest of his crew. “Make sure you remember to get that junk off you,” he said to Artem, who made a face at him but didn’t argue. “Regular shifts start in five hours – Wiz and I’ll take the first one. Yes, you too,” he said, looking over at Gaborik. “We may be dropping you off later but you’re being added to the rotation for the moment.” Gaborik nodded in agreement, looking amused. “Go on,” Jack said, shooing them out of the cabin. Dubi stayed behind, fixing Jack with a look. Jack sighed in exasperation but wandered out into the hall and turned to where Dubi was waiting. “Yes?”

“Never again.”

“Definitely not,” he said, scrubbing at his face with one hand. “Not even for three times the amount of money. I think I lost years off my life.”

“Good,” Dubi said, and Jack scowled at him. “Maybe next time you’ll listen to me when I say I have a bad feeling.”

“I did listen to you!” Jack protested, but Dubi just snorted at him and walked off. “Oh, whatever,” Jack grumbled, too tired to argue. He stuck his head back through the doorway and said, “Wiz, you coming?”

“Just programming our course in, Cap’n,” Wiz said, coming out of the cockpit. “Dubi already tell you we’re not doing anything like that ever again?”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Jack said, aggrieved, and Wiz grinned at him.

“We know you aren’t,” he said. “You’re a good captain – it was just a run of bad luck, that’s all.” Jack let his head fall back on a sigh.

“I almost got them killed, Wiz,” he said quietly.

“But you didn’t,” Wiz said, just as quietly. “Everyone is safe. You got them out. And when we give the whiskey to Avery we’ll have enough money to take it easy for a little while, we don’t have to work again – we can wait, find an easy job. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's DONE!!! I'm so excited! As usual, thanks and praise should go to opusculasedfera, without whom this whole thing would be an unintelligible mess. 
> 
> You can also find me at accidentallymelted over on tumblr, where I reblog a lot of things and sometimes post writing updates, snippets, and requests for prompts when I'm bored. Feel free to drop by and say hi!

**Author's Note:**

> The title is paraphrased from a quote by George Cooper in the Song of the Lioness quartet. Many thanks to opusculasedfera for looking this over for me! 
> 
> If anyone wants to come hang out on Tumblr, I'm accidentallymelted over there as well. I reblog lots of stuff but also sometimes post updates and snippets of things I'm writing, along with requests for prompts when I get bored.


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